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MISSIONS AND DOCTRINE 


ARCHIBALD McLEAN 


President Foreign Christian Missionary Society, Cincinnati, Ohio 


The word “mission” means a sending, and a missionary is one 
sent. Our Lord spoke of himself as one sent of God, and said 
to his disciples, “I came forth and am come from God; for 
neither have I come of myself, but he sent me’; “This is eternal 
life, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom 
thou didst send, even Jesus Christ”?; “As the Father hath sent me, 
even so send I you.”3 There are two words in the New Testament 
that are translated “doctrine.” These are “didaskalia” and “di- 
dache.” Both are from the same root. Didaskalia is found 
twenty-one times, and is translated “doctrine” fourteen times, 
“teaching” six times, and “learning” once. Didaskalia is never 
applied to the teaching of Jesus. We have it in the plural refer- 
ring to the doctrines of men and the doctrines of demons; in the 
plural it never refers to the. faith once for all delivered to the 
saints. Didache is found thirty times, and is translated “‘teach- 
ing” twenty-nine times and “doctrine’’ once. 

Doctrine means teaching or instruction. In the Commission as 
recorded by Matthew, our Lord said to the twelve, “Go ye there- 
fore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the 
name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.”* In 
The Acts we read that those who gladly received the word and 
were baptized continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and 
fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.? In the 
Second Epistle to Timothy, Paul wrote, “Every scripture in- 
spired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for cor- 
rection, for instruction which is righteousness: that the man of 
God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good 
work.”® 

Sometimes the word doctrine is used with reference to what is 
called first principles, namely, faith, repentance, confession and 
baptism. It is never used in the New Testament in that limited 


‘Jn, 8, 42. 2Jn. 17, 3. ®Jn. 20, 21. *Mt. 28, 19-20. 5Ac. 2, 42, °2 Ti. 3, 16-17. 
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sense. It includes these items as a matter of course, but it in- 
cludes much more than these. 

‘My purpose is to set forth the relation between missions and 
doctrine. I ask you to consider: 

1. What missions have done to give us a more accurate knowl- 
edge of the word of God; to discover and to emphasize passages 
that have been overlooked and neglected. Henry Clay Trumbull 
said that foreign missionaries have done more to enable Ameri- 
cans and Europeans generally to understand the Bible than have 
all other classes of scholars in all the centuries combined. He 
pointed out the fact that the Bible needed to be translated, but 
also that the land and the people contained in it must be under- 
stood and translated in order to make some of its most important 
messages not only forceful, but intelligible. Without this, much 
of the figurative language and teaching of this Oriental book 
would not be clear to us. It is just here, Trumbull says, that 
modern foreign missions have done so much good to American 
and European stay-at-homes. 

The land of Palestine has been called the Fifth Gospel. Rob- 
inson in his “Biblical Researches,’ Thomson in ‘The Land and 
the Book,” and Barclay in “The City of the Great King,” have 
thrown a flood of light on that land. Others have followed in 
their steps and have added something, but the missionaries were 
the pioneers, and in many respects their works have never been 
excelled. 

Missions are teaching us that the Bible is a missionary book. 
The Gospels contain phrases like these: All flesh, all nations, 
the whole world, all the world, the whole creation, the uttermost 
part of the earth. These phrases have no meaning if Christ’s 
program is not a missionary program. Though his own ministry 
was confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he said, 
“Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also must 
I bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one 
flock, one shepherd.’’! His last words to his disciples were these, 
“Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; 
and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea 
and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ The 
word “witness” is found in some form one hundred and seventy- 
five times in the New Testament. The word. “messenger” is 
found four hundred times in the Old Testament and the New. 

‘Tn. 10, 16, Ac. 1, 8. 


Cut missions out of the Bible, it has been said, and it would bleed 
to death. 

In his New Commentary on The Acts, President McGarvey 
referred to the Commission as given by Luke, and added, “We 
shall find that this commission is the key to the narrative before 
us; that the acts of the apostles here recorded are the counter- 
part of its terms, and the best exposition of its meaning.” There 
are many things in The Acts, but the missionary idea is the chief 
thing, and no one can read the book and understand it who does 
not keep this thought in mind. The author traces the spread of 
the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, and closes his account with 
a description of the great apostle preaching in his own hired 
dwelling the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concern- 
ing the Lord Jesus with all boldness. The Epistles are mission- 
ary documents. The names they bear indicate this: Romans, 
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Thessalonians. 
The Pastoral Epistles were written to guide two men who were 
instructing and setting in order the things that were wanting in 
several of the churches of that time. The General Epistles, with 
possibly one or two exceptions, were designed to establish the 
believers in the faith of Christ. The Revelation of John gives us 
a glimpse of the time when the kingdom of this world is become 
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign 
for ever and ever. 

As we have engaged in missions we have come to see what a 
large place missions have in the word of God. Years ago one of 
our strong men had a sermon on the Commission as given by 
Matthew. He preached it many times and thought so highly of 
it that he printed it. He had a chart on which he had placed the 
different thoughts in this great passage. The first word on the 
chart was the word “‘teach.” He was asked why he did not place 
the word “go” on the chart. He hesitated and stammered and 
made the lame reply that there was no room on the canvas for 
it. The thought of going was not in his mind, and that was the 
true reason it did not find a place on the chart. Our Lord said, 
“All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. 
Go ye therefore.”! Going is essential if all nations are to be dis- 
cipled. Hinduism seeks to remain within the borders of India. 
No orthodox Hindu is expected to go beyond those borders. If 
one should go to Europe or to America, he must be purified on 


‘Mt. 28, 18-19, 


his return by submitting to most repulsive rites before he can 
take his place again in Hindu society. But the command of the 
Living Lord is, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel 
to the whole creation.”! 

There are other things that have been called to our attention by 
the missionary enterprise. One of these is the teaching of the 
Scriptures on stewardship. We are not our own; we have been 
bought with a price. ‘According as each one hath received a 
gift, so minister it among yourselves as good stewards of the 
manifold grace of God.’? “Withhold not good from them to 
whom it is due, when it is in the power of thy hand to do it.’ 
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ saith the Lord. An- 
other item of Biblical teaching is that of giving. “Give and it 
shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, shaken to- 
gether, running over, shall they give into your bosom.’> “Re- 
member the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, ‘It is’ 
more blessed to give than to receive’.’° “As ye abound in every- 
thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all earnest- 
ness, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace 
also.”” “Let each man do according as he hath purposed in his 
heart; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful 
giver, 4 

One other item is that of self-denial. Those who go to the 
field give themselves wholly to the work. They spend their lives 
among alien peoples, among peoples of strange languages, and 
strange complexions, and strange customs. They forego many 
of the prizes that men of this world covet most earnestly. They 
wear themselves out in the service of their kind. They endure 
hardness as good soldiers. Those who remain at home share 
with them in the sacrificial life. They live simply that they may 
have the more to give. They learn to do without many of the 
comforts and conveniences of life, that they may contribute more 
liberally to the advancement of the interests of the Kingdom. 
Their thought is far removed from that of the man who said in 
the day of unwonted prosperity, “Soul, take thine ease: eat, 
drink, and be merry: thou hast much goods laid up in store for 
many years.” There is a daily denial of self, that the gospel 
may be carried to every kindred, and tongue, and tribe, and peo- 
ple. 


1Mk. 16, 15. 71 Pet. 4,10. ®Prov. 3, 27. ‘Hag. 2, 8. ®Lk. 6, 38. Ac. 20, 35. 72 Cor. halts 
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4 


2. Missions have demonstrated the sufficiency of the gospel 
as the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believes. 
That statement has not been accepted always; it is mot accepted 
by all now. An eminent missionary says that the questions put 
to him on returning from the field by professedly Christian peo- 
ple often shake his faith, not in missions, but in their own Chris- 
tian profession. He asks what kind of grasp of the gospel men 
have who doubt whether it is to-day, under any sky, the power 
of God unto salvation. 

A century ago it was said that God would convert the nations 
when it pleased him, and it was not for his people to anticipate 
the appointed hour or begin so vast a work in the dark. In his 
earlier years Alexander Campbell held that nothing would be ac- 
complished by preaching the gospel to a non-Christian people, 
because the age of miracles was past. He held that the apostles 
worked miracles, and because they did they were able to win mul- 
titudes to the faith of Christ. The Church has no such power 
to-day, and therefore missions are unauthorized and useless. 
That view is not held now by any considerable number, and it 
was not held by him in his mature years. It is not held now that 
God will convert the nations when it suits his purpose. It is not 
held that miracles are essential to the conversion of the world. 
The word of the Cross is the power of God to all who believe. 
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. 
President Hovey has said that theology is a debtor to missions 
for a transfer of emphasis from the omnipotence of God to his 
holy love. 

On no field has the gospel been preached in vain. From the very 
first it showed itself to be a victorious faith. On Pentecost those 
that gladly received the word were baptized, and that day there 
were added to the original group three thousand souls. The 
record says that the Lord added to them day by day those that 
were being saved. A little later the number of the disciples mul- 
tiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly, and a great company of the 
priests became obedient to the faith. In Corinth many hearing 
believed, and were baptized. The same is true in our day. The 
gospel is still God’s power to save every believer. It has shown 
itself to be that among the Caucasians, the Chinese, the Japanese, 
the Africans, the Polynesians, and among all races and all na- 
tions. It is all-sufficient and alone-sufficient for the redemption 
of fallen humanity. 


3. Missions are teaching the Church her mission in the world. 
The words of the prophet are applicable to the Church. “It is 
too light a thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the 
tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will 
also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my 
salvation unto the end of the earth.”! The one duty that the 
risen Lord assigned the Church was that of carrying the gospel 
into all parts of the habitable world. The Reformers of the six- 
teenth century did not understand this. Luther said that in a 
hundred years all would be over., It was too late to attempt any- 
thing in the regions beyond. 

A moment ago I referred to the views of Alexander Campbell 
in his youth. In his mature years he maintained that the Church 
was a missionary institution. He said that the Church of Christ 
is essentially and necessarily a missionary society, and until the 
whole human family has heard the gospel, missions will be in 
order, and will be the Church’s paramount and transcendent 
work, duty, privilege, and honor. More and more this view is 
being held by the whole body of believers. The Churches are 
coming to understand that their glory is not in having the cost- 
liest building and the grandest organ, but consists in what they 
are doing to give the gospel to those who have never heard the 
name of the Son of God. Paul’s ambition was so to preach the 
gospel, not where Christ was already named, that he might not 
build upon another man’s foundation.?, More and more that am- 
bition will become the ambition of the Church until the last man 
for whom Christ died shall hear the word of truth, the gospel of 
salvation. 

4. We are learning anew from missions the value of prayer. 
Dean Bosworth says this, “The most frequent and perhaps the 
most vital inquiry regarding prayer is expressed in the question: 
Can prayer accomplish anything apart from the man who prays? 
Does prayer consist in anything more than a devout soliloquy? 
Is it anything more than a spiritual exercise, healthful for the one 
who practices it, but without direct effect upon any other person, 
God or man?” There are many Christians who believe the effect 
of prayer is purely subjective. They hold that we are living in 
a world of law, and that prayer cannot change or accomplish any- 
thing aside from its effect upon the one who prays. 

Missionaries are doing much to make the words of our Lord 

11s 497,60) 20; 15.0, 

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credible: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you”!; “If two of you shall 
agree on earth as touching anything which they shall ask, it shall 
be done unto them by my Father who is in heaven.’ In hours 
of extremity the missionaries are thrown back on God, and they 
know that they receive what they ask. Dr. Shelton of Tibet has 
performed major operations with almost no equipment. According 
to all the teachings of medical science the patients could not have 
recovered ; but they did, and he attributes their recovery to the 
prayers offered by himself and his associates and the friends far 
away. Mary Slessor of Calabar has borne this testimony: “My 
life is one long, daily, hourly record of answered prayer. For 
physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given mirac- 
ulously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the gospel 
subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for every- 
thing that goes to make up my life and my service, I can testify 
with a free and often wonder-stricken awe that I believe that 
God answers prayer. I know that God answers prayer. I have 
proved during long decades while alone, as far as man’s help and 
presence are concerned, that God answers prayer. Cavilings, log- 
ical or physical, are of no avail to me. It is the very atmosphere 
in which I live and breathe and have my being, and it makes life 
glad and free and a million times worth living. I can give no 
other testimony. I am sitting alone here on a log among a com- 
pany of natives. My children, whose very lives are a testimony 
that God answers prayer, are working around me. Natives are 
crowding past on the bush road to attend palavers, and I am at 
perfect peace, far from my own countrymen and conditions, be- 
cause I know that God answers prayer. Food is scarce just now. 
We live from hand to mouth. We have no more than will be our 
breakfast to-day, but I know we shall be fed, for God answers 
prayer.” 

Paul asked the believers of his day to help him with their sup- 
plication, to continue steadfast in prayer, that God would open a 
door for the word; he asked them to pray for him that utterance 
might be given to him that he might make known with boldness 
the mystery of the gospel. He urged them to pray that the word 
of the Lord might have free course and be glorified, and that he 
and his associates might be delivered from unreasonable and evil 
men. And every missionary since that time has sent similar re- 
quests to those who are at home. 

IMt. 7, 7. *Mt. 18, 19. 

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Hudson Taylor asked for one kundred men within a year, and 
a hundred and one men were given. He asked for fifty thou- 
sand dollars to defray their expenses to China; he asked that the 
money might come in a few large gifts, as the bookkeeper was 
sick and away from the mission rooms—and the money came in 
eleven gifts. The simple faith of the missionaries is making it 
possible for the Churches to believe that prayer is something more 
than a devout soliloquy, that prayer accomplishes what would not 
be accomplished if prayer were not offered. 

5. Missions strengthen faith. The clearest and most con- 
vincing proofs of God’s presence and activity in the world come 
from the mission fields. Dr. Gibson of South China says, “The 
mission field has its great rewards, and perhaps the chief of 
them is the strong confirmation of faith which its scenes afford.” 
He adds that when you see truth and purity, love and honor, gen- 
erosity and tenderness, self-denial and unworldly faith, springing 
to blossom and setting to fruit in a moral soil like that of China, 
with the heavens overhead as brass and the earth as iron beneath, 
while the very atmosphere seems heavy and foul with heathenism 
all around,—when you see these things, you must say, “The 
finger of God is here.” “We recognize the unmistakable hus- 
bandry of God, and one feels that it is worth while to be a mis- 
sionary, were it only to see for one’s self, at first hand, the au- 
thentic working of His spirit.” Heredity, custom, education, 
social influence, public opinion, and popular ideals are solid 
against the entrance of the gospel; it does its redeeming work 
nevertheless. Dr. Gibson refers to the lotus which roots itself 
in rotten mud, thrusts up its leaves and blossoms through the foul 
and stagnant water, lifts its spotless petals over all, holding them 
up pure, stainless, and fragrant, in the face of a burning and piti- 
less sun, and says, “So it is with the Christian life in China. Its 
continuance there is a miracle of life, of life more abundant.” 
The mighty changes effected in the lives of the converts are a 
demonstration of God’s presence and power. In the apostolic 
age it was said of some that in time past they had been thieves, 
they had been extortioners, they lived unclean lives; but they had 
been washed ; they had been sanctified and justified by the Lord 
Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. 

The effect of the service upon the missionaries shows the same 
thing. In the book entitled, “The Little Green God,” it is said 
that some of the best people in the prosperous church in which 

8 


the missionary spoke, said to the minister that he made it easier 
to believe. There was something about the man and about his 
address that made them think of God and of God’s grace and 
power. The history of the Moravians and the lives of Carey and 
Judson and Morrison and Moffat and Livingstone and Garst and 
Wharton and Loftis and Eldred and Butchart and Meigs create 
faith and confirm faith. 

6. Missions corroborate the teaching of the Scriptures as to the 
unity of the race. Mankind is represented as springing from a 
single pair. It is said that God has made of one all the nations 
that dwell on all the face of the earth. All have the same char- 
acteristics ; all have sinned and have come short of the glory of 
God; all are weak and need help. Books have been written to 
prove that some people have no souls, that they are brute beasts 
and must perish as brute beasts. They are classed with baboons 
and with dogs. Men have spoken of the folly of trying to clothe 
asses with immortality. Darwin saw some people who were so 
low in the scale that he did not believe that all the missionaries 
in the world could do them any good. Later in his life he con- 
fessed that he was mistaken, and expressed his joy in what had 
been done by the missionaries to elevate and to ennoble those 
very people. Most ethnologists and anthropologists hold that all 
men sprang from one pair, and that the different conditions under 
which they have lived are sufficient to account for the existing 
differences in language, in custom, and in complexion. The most 
competent judges hold with the Bible that all are children of one 
Great Father, “in whatever clime his providence has cast the 
seeds of life, all tongues, all colors.” 

We are tempted to think that the English-speaking peoples of 
the white race are superior to all others, and to speak with con- 
tempt of the other races of the world. We would do well to bear 
in mind the great men these other races have produced. From 
the Slavs have come Copernicus, who lived and wrought before 
Newton; Comenius, who anticipated Pestalozzi, Froebel, Horace 
Mann, and Mark Hopkins; John Huss, who lived a century be- 
fore Luther; Sobieski, who crushed the Turkish army before 
Vienna; Kosciusko and Pulaski, who were friends and assist- 
ants of Washington. From the Italians, of whom we speak as 
Dagoes, have come Dante, Columbus, Raphael, Michael Angelo, 
Del Sarto, Angelico, Galileo, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Galvani, Volta, 
and Marconi. We speak of the Jews with contempt, and lose 

9 


sight of the fact that from the Jews came Abraham, the friend of 
God; Israel, a prince who had favor with God and men; Moses, 
the noblest character of antiquity; Samuel, Elijah, David, Isaiah, 
John the Baptist, Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, and Christ accord- 
ing to the flesh. Jews have been soldiers, statesmen, musicians, 
merchants, philanthropists. We speak of the Chinese and call 
them Chinks; but John R. Mott says that in his travels among 
more than thirty nations the race that has impressed itself most 
upon him is the Chinese, “not so much because of its strategic 
location, its vast extent, its immense natural resources, as the 
characteristics of the race itself.” Rev. F. L. Anderson says, 
“When I was a professor at the University of Chicago we had a 
Chinese as a student. He was the most accomplished gentleman 
I ever knew. His faultless grace of manner always made me 
feel awkward in his presence. My father said he was the aptest 
student in metaphysics he ever saw.” 

A speaker at Northfield spoke of the Chinese as follows: 
“Has it occurred to you that when our Irish ancestors were clad 
in skins and eating raw flesh, the Chinese were dressed in silks, 
and merchant princes were sending caravans straight across Asia 
to trade with ancient Rome? While our Scotch ancestors, more- 
over, were dwelling in caves, each man with his own woman, 
gnawing the bones of animals slain with clubs, the Chinese dwelt 
in walled cities, centers of administration, linked up with great 
trunk roads, like the Roman roads. Has it occurred to you that, 
while our English ancestors were in the Druidic forests, sacri- 
ficing human victims to their cruel gods, the Chinese emperor 
was uttering prayers of remarkable purity to one God? Let us 
never forget that fact. The difference between these races is 
that they did not ‘evolve’ a true religion, but they continued to 
‘devolve’ to where they are. And I want you to keep in mind 
that when our Norse ancestors, who conceived of heaven, Val- 
halla, as a slaughter-house, were breaking open the heads of their 
enemies, our ancestors, and drinking the blood hot, then the Chi- 
nese emperor was having an encylcopedia compiled for use in 
hundreds of homes. We think of our democracy beginning with 
the town-meeting ; but long before that the Chinese had their own 
village democracy with elders and chosen men of ability who nat- 
urally came to the front to rule over them. When our German 
ancestors were clad in skins of wild animals, and sliding on their 


shields down the Alps into Italy, ravaging and destroying every- 
Io 


thing of art and culture which Italy had gathered at Rome—at a 
time like that, the Chinese were filling government positions by 
means of civil service examinations, and long before the time of 
Abraham they were writing essays of flawless diction in civil 
service competition.” 

Dr. Gracey says: “When Moses led the Israelites through the 
wilderness, Chinese laws and literature and Chinese religious 
knowledge excelled that of Egypt. A hundred years before the 
north wind rippled over the harp of David, Wung Wang, an em- 
peror of China, composed classics which are committed to mem- 
ory at this day by every advanced scholar of the empire. While 
Homer was composing and singing the Iliad, China’s blind min- 
strels were celebrating her ancient heroes, whose tombs had al- 
ready been with them through nearly thirteen centuries. Her 
literature was fully developed before England was invaded by 
the Norman conquerors. The Chinese invented firearms as early 
as the reign of England’s first Edward, and the art of printing 
five hundred years before Caxton was born. They made paper 
A. D. 150, and gunpowder about the commencement of the Chris- 
tian era. A thousand years ago the forefathers of the present 
Chinese sold silks to the Romans, and dressed in these fabrics 
when the inhabitants of the British Isles wore coats of blue paint 
and fished in willow canoes. Her great wall was built two hun- 
dred and twenty years before Christ was born at Bethlehem, and 
contains material enough to build a wall five or six feet high 
around the globe.” 

Professor Ross says that among a score of farmers in a little 
congregation, gathered to dedicate a country chapel in Fokien, 
he noticed four fine faces, and one peasant who might have sat to 
Leonardo da Vinci for his St. John. Professor Ross says that 
there is nothing more creditable to the domestic organization of 
the Chinese than the attractive old people it produces. “I have 
never seen old faces more dignified, serene, and benevolent than 
I have met with among elderly Chinese farmers.” Professor 
Ross saw a stripling in West China who might have posed for 
Michael Angelo’s David. “Often the eye lights on an oval face, 
with arched, penciled eyebrows, delicate temples, straight nose, 
high-cut nostrils, and fine eyes, beautiful as Antinous. The world 
has been slow to realize that nowhere is there a more high-bred 
countenance than can be found in China.” 

Professor Ross asked forty-three men, who as educators, mis- 

It 


sionaries, and diplomats, had good opportunity to know the fact, 
“Do you find the intellectual capacity of the yellow race equal to 
that of the white race?” All but five answered, yes. One Sin- 
ologue of varied experience as missionary, university president, 
and legation adviser left him gasping with the statement, “Most 
of us who have spent twenty-five years or more out here have 
come to feel that the yellow race is the normal human type, while 
the white race is a ‘sport’.” 

We are apt to think no good can come of the Negro race. 
Booker Washington was a negro, and spoke at one of our con- 
ventions some twenty years ago. Among the million people that 
constitute our fellowship, it was said that there was not one who 
was his equal as a speaker. 

7. Missions are teaching the need of union and cooperation. 
It is not long since good men contended that divisions are of God, 
and that Churches are doing more in competition than they could 
do in cooperation, I remember when a minister in my own city 
was tried for heresy because he contended in a sermon that di- 
vision was a sin. What was heresy then is a first and funda- 
mental truth now. The leading men in many communions are 
advocating union and setting forth the good effects that would 
follow. A great literature on union has been created in the past 
two or three decades. At the Edinburg Conference it was stated 
that if all the forces in the field could be united it would be equiv- 
alent to doubling the staff, and that without spending another 
dollar or employing another man. It goes with the saying that 
the strongest pressure in the direction of union comes from the 
fields. The missionaries see, as others do not, the evil of division. 
They have been told to agree among themselves before undertak- 
ing to teach others. The king of Uganda said, ‘“Every white 
man has a religion of his own; how am I to know who is right 
and who is wrong?” The missionaries recognize the force of the 
words of the Indian chief, “All your strength is in your union, all 
your danger is in discord; therefore be in peace together, and as 
brothers live.” Long ago Alexander Campbell said that the only 
thing necessary to the conversion of the world is the union and 
cooperation of all believers. One result of the missionary enter- 
prise is this,—the abundant teaching of the Scriptures on this 
subject is receiving new emphasis. ‘Give diligence to keep the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”! ‘‘Now I beseech you, 

1Eph. 4, 3. 

12 


brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all 
speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; 
but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in th 
same judgment.””! | 

8. Missions are giving us a fuller knowledge of Christ. We 
are told that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge. We read of His unsearchable riches. We read again 
that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Paul 
prayed for the Ephesians that they might be strong to apprehend 
with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and 
depth, and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge.? 
It was only as they were able to apprehend this with all the saints 
that they would be able to apprehend it fully, for Christ is larger 
and richer than anything that any one has been able to under- 
stand concerning him. Bishop Gore has said that no Church and 
no race has attained to the full apprehension of all that the Lord 
Jesus truly is. He said also that as in the past the various races 
have in their own way added something to the revelation of the 
unsearchable riches of Christ, so in the future every race will by 
its thought and life apprehend and reveal riches in Christ which 
the Western races need also to apprehend. ‘‘Each race has its 
own special aptitudes, its glory and honor, and as the glory and 
honor of each nation has been brought within the light of the 
Holy City, the versatility and intellect of the Greeks, the ma- 
jestic discipline of the Romans, and the strong individuality of 
the Teutons, each in turn has been able to find its true ideal in 
Jesus of Nazareth.” “Only together, all ages, all races, both 
sexes, can we grow into one body, into the perfect man. Only a 
really catholic society can be the fullness of Him that filleth all 
in all. Thus we cannot doubt that, when the day comes that 
shall see the existence of really national Churches in India, and 
Japan, and China, the tranquillity and inwardness of the Hindu, 
the pertinacity and patience of the Chinaman, the lightness and 
amiability of the Japanese, will each in turn receive its best con- 
secration in Christ, and bring out new and unsuspected aspects of 
the Christian life, finding fresh resources in Him in whom is 
neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, barbarian, 
Scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all and in all.” 

Bishop Westcott has the same thought. He says, ‘“‘Vast peo- 
ples, richly endowed with manifold gifts, still remain outside the 


41 Cor. 1, 10. ?Eph. 3, 18-19. 
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pale of the faith. These may even now be being disciplined for 
some future work. The races of the Far East, we can hardly 
doubt, will in their season lay open fresh depths of the gospel 
which we are unfitted to discover. Already there are symptoms 
of such a consummation: and when once we trust the simple gos- 
pel message, we shall be allowed to learn as we have never yet 
done how it can take up and transfigure the most different forms 
of conduct and thought, and become more glorious as it does so.” 
Dr. Arthur Judson Brown has spoken to the same effect, “I 
doubt if we shall ever know all that is in Christ until we can 
blend the interpretation of Europeans and Americans with that 
of the self-forgetting loyalty of the Japanese, the practical sense 
of the Chinese, the profound mysticism of the East Indian, the 
childlike emotionalism of the African, and the swift intuition of 
the Korean. The Asiatic, when once regenerated and guided by 
the Spirit of God, may be more likely to interpret the real mean- 
ing of the Bible and of Christ than we who belong to a different 
race, for he brings an Oriental mind and point of view to the in- 
terpretation of an Oriental Book. The missionaries who are 
winning these nations to Christ are hastening the coming of the 
time when the Church will be able to comprehend what now she 
is able only to apprehend.” 

9. Missions are calling us back to the simplicity of the early 
ages of the Church. The missionary thinks little of philosophy 
and ritual and dogma, and much of the faith once for all de- 
livered to the saints. The people among whom he lives and works 
have no interest in the creeds of Christendom; without a knowl- 
edge of the history of the Church such as they do not possess, 
these creeds have no meaning for them. Dr. Behrends, himself 
a mighty preacher in his day, said, ‘Foreign missions act as a 
flail upon the threshing floor of ancient scholasticism and modern 
criticism. I have noted a habit of condescension where foreign 
missionaries are the theme of conversation. We are told that 
abler men, and more of them, must be sent out. As if every man 
in orders at home was a Gabriel! Pardon me, but what little I 
have seen of foreign missionaries has created in me the convic- 
tion that they constitute the most cosmopolitan class in the min- 
istry. The East and the West have mingled their streams in 
their life. They have thought their way through to a simpler 
theology than have we. They have ceased to tithe mint, anise, 
and cummin. They have learned that Japan and China will never 

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repeat the shibboleths of our schools. They have concentrated 
upon fundamentals. They listen in silence, with wondering eyes 
and burdened hearts, to many of our disputations. They know 
what kind of gospel the great world needs; and I have sometimes 
thought it might be well if they should draw up a creed that 
would be binding on us who stay at home. At all events, the sim- 
plicity which experience has forced upon them must master us. 
Nor is it difficult to state what that ultimate simplicity of doc- 
trinal conviction must be. It must be the primitive simplicity. 
There can be no other. We must come back to the New Testa- 
ment. Our religion must centralize in personal devotion to the 
personal Christ. He is our Master; He alone. We must stop 
deifying dogma. We must stop deifying ritual.” 

It is said of John Coleridge Patteson that he had no time or 
inclination to think about anything except the gospel which had 
cast out the devil from the Melanesians, and led them in quiet- 
ness and humility to sit at the feet of Jesus. He felt the im- 
mense relief of being at such a distance from the sphere of con- 
tention and theological difference. He wrote home, “My dear 
father writes in great anxiety about the Denison case. Oh, dear! 
- What a cause for thankfulness it is to be out of the din of con- 
troversy, and to find hundreds of thousands longing for crumbs 
which are shaken about so roughly in these angry disputes! It 
isn’t High nor Low nor Broad Church, or any other special name, 
but the longing to forget all distinctions, and to return to the sim- 
pler state of things, that seems to result naturally from the very 
sight of heathen people. Who thinks of anything but this: They 
have never heard the name of the Saviour who died for them, 
when he is standing with crowds of naked fellows around him.” 

10. Missions are giving the Church a worthier conception of 
its founder as the Saviour of the world. There is salvation in 
him, and there is salvation in none other, for there is no other 
name given under heaven and among men whereby we must be 
saved. Bishop Greer has stated that Foreign Missions exert a 
beneficial influence upon our life at home by putting into it a 
truer and worthier conception of Jesus Christ himself and of the 
religion of Jesus Christ. The distinctive feature of that religion 
is its universalism. Other religions are local, national, or ethnic, 
for particular races and peoples; but the religion of Jesus Christ 
is for all races and peoples. It is a religion of human life, and if 
we make it anything else or anything less than that we change 

15 


not only its compass and scope, but its character as well. Then 
it is not the religion of Jesus Christ; it has a provincial narrow- 
ness in and a provincial accent on it. Jesus Christ himself is not 
Jesus Christ. He is made to appear provincial; and it is not to 
a provincial Christ or to a provincial-appearing Christ that peo- 
ple will respond, in mission fields or in other fields. “I, if I be 
lifted up,” he says, “will draw all men unto me.”! Yes, so he 
will, and so he does. 

When, therefore, we hear it said, as we sometimes do, that 
there are heathen at home, and that our Christian efforts should 
be confined to them, my answer is, Yes, so there are; and there 
are heathen notions at home unless we are also trying to reach 
the heathen away from home. We cannot get the full force of 
the gospel of Jesus Christ into the cities and towns and villages 
of America, except as we try to get it to them by going around 
the globe. 

The main objective of missions is the evangelization of all na- 
tions. The command is, “Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to the whole creation.”* “Ye shall receive power when 
the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses 
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the 
uttermost part of the earth.”’ But the calling of souls out of 
darkness into light, and from the power of Satan unto God, is 
not the sole result of the missionary propaganda. As the Church 
engages in the prosecution of her task she obtains a more accurate 
knowledge of the word of God; she is assured of the sufficiency 
of the gospel for the purpose for which it was given; she comes 
to know beyond any peradventure what her own mission is; she 
sees a demonstration of the value of prayer; her faith in God is 
confirmed; she comes to realize that the human race is a unit; 
she is made to realize her need of union and cooperation; she 
comes to a fuller knowledge of the unsearchable riches of Christ; 
she is called back to the simplicity of the early ages of the faith; 
she has a worthier conception of the Founder of our holy re- 
ligion. These are by-products, to be sure, but very precious by- 
products. The better understanding of the teaching of the Scrip- 
tures on the topics named and on other topics constitutes an 
added reason for doing as much as in us lies to preach the gospel 
in all creation under heaven unto the obedience of faith. 

‘Jn. 12, 32. ?Mk. 16, 15. ®Ac. 1, & 


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